Thousands of shoes, shirts and haircuts spruce up youths from head to toe

Mike Baird/Caller-Times
Jaiden De La Rosa, 7, (from left) watches his brother Johnny, 5, get help from their mother Priscilla De La Rosa in trying on new shoes at the Back to School from Head-2-Toe event Saturday. They were some of the thousands who received free shoes, blue polo shirts and haircuts from Bay Area Fellowship Westside at Cesar Chavez Academy on Mueller Street.

Mike Baird/Caller-Times
Volunteers search for canvas tennis shoes by color and size from stacks of boxes with 3,000 pairs Saturday at the Back to School from Head-2-Toe event put on by Bay Area Fellowship Westside at Cesar Chavez Academy on Mueller Street. Families filled out request forms, then waited under tent awnings as some of the about 160 volunteers for the event fetched the school clothes.

Mike Baird/Caller-Times
Student stylist Emily Green whisks around Jose Colchado, 14, dusting hair from his neck with a tissue. She was one of nine student hairstylists who cut hair at the Back to School from Head-2-Toe event by Bay Area Fellowship Westside at Cesar Chavez Academy.

Mike Baird/Caller-Times
Volunteer Angelica Ochoa, 17, (left) delivers shoes to Priscilla De La Rosa for her sons at the Back to School from Head-2-Toe event Saturday. They were some of the thousands who received free shoes, blue polo shirts and haircuts from Bay Area Fellowship Westside at Cesar Chavez Academy on Mueller Street.

CORPUS CHRISTI - Dozens of volunteers, who were there by 4 a.m., packed bottled water on ice, stacked shoes boxes as high as an elephant's eye, and set up canopies for shade.

"Last year was insane," said Daphne Fine, one of about 160 church volunteers. "This year we're more streamlined."

In the first two hours, more than 1,000 people poured into the refurbished Cesar Chavez Academy, which recently united with the church as a faith outreach center for the neighborhood.

After filling out forms with their children's shirt and shoe sizes, and waiting in the shade for their delivery, they found more than back-to-school stuff inside:

n Women who don't feel safe in their homes talked to counselors from Women's Shelter of South Texas.

n Adults, young and old, filled out forms to help them find jobs.

n Children colored, made cardboard hats and ate snacks.

Andrea Scott and her nine student stylists from Aveda Institute Corpus Christi filled the floor with hair all day long.